No two software engineers are alike, but the Applications Developer Alliance is creating a program to encourage more standardization in how engineers are considered.

The new Developer Workforce Initiative is “a global effort to increase the size, expertise and understanding” regarding software engineers. It’s also completely agnostic to platform, technologies and industry.

Its wide scope of services is aimed at enveloping the entire life of an engineer or developer. In addition to creating some educational standards for those just getting into development, the initiative also wants to pair developers with potential employers and identify new trends.

There’s also a public policy and advocacy effort to focus the many views on issues into one central voice.

Perhaps most interesting to the day-to-day developer will be that the initiative wants to create core competencies and “set criteria for industrialized application development.” It’s unclear how that may dovetail into the various demands of disparate companies an engineer deals with day-to-day, or if it will. It’s also unclear if the initiative can even come to terms on what ‘standard’ really is, or how fluid that may be.

So far, there are some heavy hitters on board. Google, Ford, Intel, Facebook and AT&T are all listed as partners.

The Developer Workforce Initiative will roll out its services incrementally over the course of 2016, but you can sign up to be notified of developments now. If nothing more, it could serve as a forum for effective decision making rather than screaming into the wind on Twitter.